Everyday Stewardship

“While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take it; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God,’” (Mark 14: 22-25).

If you take the time to gaze upon your God in the simplest of forms, and begin to reflect on what has actually taken place with bread and wine becoming the presence of the Divine, then you can begin to understand true humility, sacrifice, and love.

I became a Christian at age 17. I didn’t go to church growing up and really knew very little about Jesus. That is, until I met a girl whom I liked quite a bit. When I finally mustered the courage to call and ask her on a date, she told me that she would like to go out with me but that she liked to end her dates in prayer.

Being church is all about a company of witnesses who “stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of those who see how they live.” Is your life stirring up irresistible questions? Is mine?

When we take time to include “inactivity” into our daily life and into our year, we acknowledge that we are not the sum of our career, job, schoolwork, or even parenting. We have been given more by God and sometimes the only way to experience the richness of those gifts is to take a break from that which we normally do.

We are not like grass. We do not grow without a decision to do so. The grass receives water from the clouds, sunlight from a far off star, and the occasional fertilizer from yours truly, but it still never makes a decision to grow. It just does. You and I have to decide to grow, or we can find ourselves years later at the same stage of ignorance we are at now.

We all know sowing is the process of planting seeds. Jesus tells of the sower – some seeds fell on the path, on rocky ground, some among thorns and some on rich soil. We are also aware that the seed Jesus refers to in the parable is the Word of God. A sower might be careful not to waste seed on areas that will not grow, but Jesus knows that we cannot always tell who will represent the path, rocky ground, thorns, or rich soil. Therefore, we must lavishly sow seeds for the kingdom of God.

I collect smiley faces. The crown jewels of my collection are Harvey Ball autographed smileys and McCoy pottery smileys. When I started my collection, I looked for the McCoy symbol on each pottery piece, to verify it was a “real McCoy.” The stamp of the symbol told me that it had been made in the 1970s and was indeed made by the Ohio manufacturer. Without a stamp, I could only assume it was a counterfeit or copycat piece, coming from nowhere special and belonging to no known entity.

In a 2009 address, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI spoke about the Holy Trinity in this way: “The ‘name’ of the Blessed Trinity is, in a certain sense, imprinted upon all things because all that exists, down to the last particle, is in relation; in this way we catch a glimpse of God as relationship and ultimately, Creator Love. All things derive from love, aspire to love and move impelled by love.” That means that you and I, and all material things, bear this imprint. The mark indicates our origin and Creator.

This implies three important realities: first, all creation is important and precious; second, all creation belongs to the Creator whose mark is imprinted on it; and third, the origin and purpose of that creation is love. Good stewards, then, should cherish everything and everyone around them and treat all of it with great care and compassion. Our belongings and the resources used to create them all bear the mark. Our children, parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, and enemies–all bear the mark. There is nothing and no one who belongs to no known entity. It is all God’s. It is all the real McCoy.

A good steward should cherish everything and everyone around them, and treat all of it with great care and compassion. Even our belongings and resources used to co-create with God all bear the His mark.

Christian community is always strongest in the face of tragedy. We can easily say that it is unfortunate that we can’t all come together as strong when times are good. But deep down, we don’t really believe that. In fact, it is precisely at the toughest times we want and we need community in Jesus Christ to be the strongest.

Working in a parish offers me the privilege of walking side by side with some of the most heroic and faithful people I have encountered. These people do not have a platform or a pulpit. They are those who in the midst of tragedy, pain, and the hard daily grind of providing for their family, persevere in faith and give more than they receive.

My oldest son was having a tougher time than expected in his first year of college. In high school he expected to get As and be one of the smarter kids in the class. Now, he was at a school where everyone came from a similar experience in high school, and he found himself pretty darn average. His mother and I urged him early on to seek some help from a tutor. He gasped. When he was in high school, he WAS the tutor. After some reflection he said, “I just like to do things on my own.”

So often many of us are like that. We find it hard to accept help. We think maybe it says something about our lack of capability or skill to reach out for help. When help is offered to us, we can quickly respond, “No thanks, I’m fine.” It is amazing how sometimes we are anything but fine.

Living a stewardship way of life as a committed disciple of Jesus is not easy. In fact, we are guaranteed to fail. That inevitable failure is called sin. Grace makes it possible for us to continue on the journey. On that first Pentecost, the first followers of Jesus received the Holy Spirit who would guide them. For over two thousand years, that same Spirit has moved in us and guided us. Help for the journey is always available. Sin and temptation constantly seek to impede our steps. But through the gifts of this Spirit we can discern and make wise judgments, lessening the toll life can exact on us. Reach out and take the hand of God; allow his Spirit to lead you and guide you. Don’t look back after making the journey harder than it used to be and say, “I just liked doing things on my own.” You are never alone.

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